If you open the same Kodi app again without removing preferences, it crashes from the intro splash screen back to the desktop directly.

Other bits of information that may be relevant:
VBox model: XTi-3442 3rd Gen DVB-T2 (for Australia)
VBox software version: XTI_VJ.2.56
Note that VBox is set up to record to a SMB network drive (I suspect this is relevant)

gives the addon an XMLTV file of channels & programs. In parsing a "programme" tag from the XML and constructing a Programme object, looks like a string was assigned with a 0x0 address. This string probably belongs to one of the xmltv::Programme members (that are strings) - all of which should be getting a valid text string. The texts which are assumed to exist are a part of the XMLTV standard, so something in one of the tags was either missing, or somehow misinterpreted.
So if you (or anyone else, for this matter) happen to have access to that XML, or another case of this kind of crash with its XML - that would help see why this happened.

As I suspected, there was an empty "desc" tag there ("Dance TV") - which shouldn't really crash anything, but certainly is unusual.
Either way, I've placed a validation mechanism there (and in a few other places), so this doesn't happen again. So this
fix (after a code review) should be in there in a matter of days. I'll let you know when it's included in the nightly build.

O.K, so it looks like this fix is in the nightly build, but:
Notice there are Krypton nightlies, and master nightlies. Looks like this fix won't go into Krypton, but it is in the latest master nightly build. So if you install that one, your problem should be solved.
Now, if you're going to want the actual Krypton release (when it's released), and no major changes are made in between now and the actual release, you could re-use the pvr.vbox.dll file in the Kodi folder (after you install this nightly version), and copy it in place of the pvr.vbox.dll that comes with the Krypton release (if you install it, eventually).